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This is the other half of the post I was going to write Sunday. I just got so wrapped up in my good feelings about being in the house, and looking around to see all of the possibilities, that I decided to put off the other feelings running through my head.

A lot of my time and energy has been taken up lately with thoughts about my father – disappointment, resentment, memories bubbling up to the surface in recognition of a pattern that he refuses to change and I finally refuse to put up with. I wrote him a 14 1/2 page letter, a history of abuses starting when I was 10 and hinting at those that came before. It took me a day and a half, with pauses for actually living my life of course, and as I moved further from the beginning I started once again to question whether it would do any good to even get my thoughts on paper.

I’m moving on now.

I read the letter to Brian, and to my mom and grandma, the latter two of whom have actually encouraged me to send it to him sans edit. At first they were concerned that in my hormonal state I may end up burning a bridge that I’d rather just rope off for construction, but there were a few surprises in that letter that even Grammy didn’t know. Now, she’s standing at my side with a match.

I still won’t send it. What good will it do? I know who I’m dealing with – he will either directly contradict or attempt to rationalize every point I make. It’s not my business, I don’t know how difficult things are for him, I misunderstood him, I caused it. He’s incapable of any interaction in which he isn’t gaslighting someone, so I understand that any expectation of acknowledgement is just as far-fetched as any hope of an apology.

Instead, I blocked his number from my phone. I’m sure he’s already forgotten where I live, and with the support of my family I know that he won’t be able to reach me. Let him wonder, if he will, what I’m doing and how my life is without him. Let him be bitter, or angry, or sorry, but let him be so on his own. After nearly 27 years of giving without receiving, I am denying him the closure that he would continue to deny me.

Turnabout, after all, is fair play.

When I catch myself wondering about him, or thinking about him, or I see his face in our wedding photos on the wall (before I paste Patrick Stewart over them, of course), I will try my best to stop and refocus that energy on all the positive things going on. It’ll take some time…but I’ll find peace without him.